Web Conferencing Tools

So in reply to Ed Teng’s comment in my post with invites to A.Viary online production tools (if I understand him correctly) I will post some links and comments to webconferencing tools that might be useful for instructional purposes.

ePresence -> Free and open source tool. Has to be installed on your local server. Technical support is offered by the Open Source Consortium. Their webconferencing and webcasting applications are excellent and feature-rich. It is possible to record both webcasting (broadcasting an event, for instance) and make it available on your website. It is possible to record webconferencing (people interacting with a virtual whiteboard in a virtual room) and make it available as well.

 

DimDim -> Another open source initiative. You can host online meeting without installing any extra program, just go to their website, create a free account and you are up and running. DimDim allows you to schedule and invite anyone without requiring them to install any plugins. Maximum of 20 users in the free ad-supported version of the online web meeting program, but they offer room for up to 100 people for $495/year and an enterprise edition. You can also install locally and free of charge the DimDim Enterprise edition free of charge (it requires more technical know-how).

Elluminate -> Webconferencing tool with many features. Even though the “looks” are more old-fashioned, this program is very stable and well-accepted in the academic arena. They have good academic packages.

Yugma -> Feature-rich webconferencing tool that has a free version. Yugma offers other versions of their packages that allow you to invite more participants at a time. A plugin is required for participant to view the meeting room. An interesting differentiator for Yugma is that they offer a Skype plugin that works seamless with the famous VOIP client.

Vyew -> Web-based tool that has many important features in their free version. No plugins to download and plans that offer more flexibility and storage are also offered.

Open Source Social Network Engines

No-one is impressed with the words “social networking” anymore. We used to have to explain to new comers what “Myspace” or Facebook implied. Now everyone can have their own social networks online with relatively no cost using open source solutions that I think deserve some attention:

1- www.elgg.org -> free and open source initiative. Very customizable, still need som work done, doesn’t have many of the standard features you would expect from a social network. Large developer base might bring important improvements over time.

2- www.drupal.org -> not exactly built for social networking per se, but has an enormous plugin database that can bring extra functionality, including the possibility of creating Digg-like video/news/websites/etc. aggregator that requires votes by community members so content is published.

3- http://update.peopleaggregator.org -> Myspace-like social network engine. Integration with OpenID. Still pretty “rough”, but has potential. Demo: http://www.peepagg.net/

4- www.boonex.com/products/dolphin -> more focused on “dating” but allows for customization. Many plugins have to be “purchased”, though.

5- http://www.barnraiser.org -> I can’t tell you much about it (not many communities powered by “aroundme” right now). It is open source.

6- http://civicspacelabs.org -> Drupal as a social network. Has free options for non profit organizations.

7- http://appleseed.sourceforge.net -> not much information on the website and no demos available. Open source.

8- http://lovdbyless.com -> new open source social network engine that has a lot of potential. Ruby on Rails. Some nice features and integration with Youtube and Flikr out of the box.

9- isocial - http://sourceforge.net/projects/socialnetwork -> not much info.

10- clonesumating -> should be a clone of “consumating.com”, which has been down for quite a while now. Quite a few features.

11- ozcode - http://sourceforge.net/projects/ozcode -> an ozmozr.com clone. Lets you build networks around feeds and friends.

12- http://insoshi.org -> brand new, lots of work to be done. Good for simple networks.

Also, http://www.mahara.org -> not exactly “social networking”. Good ePortfolio with some social networking around it. I don’t understand why people pay for some ePortfolio providers out there (you know what I am talking about). Just an example of how open source and free (as in no money or credit card necessary) can offer great features that are comparable to commercial products.

Digital Divide 2.0

Everyone is talking about Web 2.0 and how everyone has a voice, even I have suggested that in blog posts, company training designs and school work (yes I am a graduate student wishing he were a Doctor already).

Something that has been bothering me though is the fact that “all this” technology does not seem to be available to everyone, really. I am not talking about a matter of having access to Facebook and choosing not to use it. What I am suggesting is the reality of “not everyone actually has access to these ‘amazing’ collaborative technologies” as they should.

This makes educational efforts that rely on Read/Write Web tools (even though there aren’t that many such initiatives) some sort of elitist efforts.

Some initiatives like the One Laptop Per Child project try to take technology to third world countries. The Brazilian government partnered with computer manufacturers to create a more accessible PC for the people called “Computador Popular” (or “People PC”) which gave my mother, 65, the opportunity to have her first computer which we use to stay in touch now. But it is still not enough. Not enough.

I pose this more as a question. How can we make collaborative Read/Write Web tools really accessible to more people(s) in the world, especially the under-privileged? Better yet, how can we make educational initiatives that use those technologies available to more people in the world? How can we make educators aware of the possibilities of such tools for Education (after granting them access to computers)?

Open Source Alternatives to Web 2.0 Services

What we see happening in school districts, educational institutions and companies all over the world is the urge to adopt technology to manage and deliver better learning experiences. As a result, these entities end up “investing” (sometimes) significant amounts of money without considering free alternatives offered by the open source community.

The open source community has been growing ever since its start around the 70’s early 80’s with MIT AI Labs’ resignation to initialize the  GNU project and the Free Software Foundation. Around the same time the  University of California at Berkeley’s had already started working on their Unix system.

Why don’t the companies and schools save some of that money to invest in good quality open source and free initiatives?

Let’s see some examples of open source software that could offer great service in Education, yet, need more attention from technology adoption decision makers. I’m focusing more on applications that can be intalled on local servers, since one of the biggest concernes is “Who is going to access this resource? How can we keep it clean?” Hosting such services on an institution’s own servers gives them relatively more control than just, lets say, creating a community on Youtube or Ning (we’ll discuss whitelabel social networking suites in another article).

Why is open source better than proprietary software? First of all, it is free with the exception of a few projects that have thrid party companies offer add-ons that are not available in the project’s community. Second of all, the quality of the applications is guaranteed by communities of developers that are always trying to add innovative ideas to the projects because that is what they love to do. Moreover, open source projects are in perpetual beta phase of development.

The goal of this article is to mainly show examples of open source initiatives that try to replicate current mainstream Web 2.0 applications/communities in a way that allows anyone to install and tweak their own version of such services.

PHPMotion - So many schools and companies see the potential in video sharing communities as far as education is concerned. Websites such as Teachertube have become more popular amongst educators. PhpMotion lets you install a free Youtube-like video sharing community on your own server. Think of the possibilities here!

Moodle - Free LMS with several plugins to make it even morfe fun(ctional) and relevant to your needs. Some interesting parallel projects add much more to Moodle.

Sloodle - One of those successful projects that use Moodle to bring LMS functionalities to MUVEs such as Second Life.

ELGG - Create your own collaborative learning environment. Let the learners interact, tag, blog, exchange, pictures, videos, and information of all kinds. Your own social network. Thsi suite was created having educational setting in mind.

WordPress - Create a blogging platform for your organization, let the learners be active and post individually or edit/publish in groups. It is fun, instructive and helps them stay creative.

PLIGG - Add the power of the democratic Read/Write Web voting communities to your learners’ environments, it is all about them anyway, isn’t it? PLIGG was built by the open souorce community to be a Digg “clone”, so its primary focus was on social news. However, many people have used it to rank other websites, to post videos, stories, pictures, etc. [link to examples]

Photos - If the way we share our videos, documents, thoughts has changed, the way we share our photos has not remiained the same. Trying to find an open source clone for the widely acclaimed photos sharing service Flikr was not an easy task. More people have been looking as well. After a google searcb it is possible to see people asking for the service for a while and wishes have been partially granted. I say partially because the open source community has yet been able to replicate the service, nor does it seem to be interested in doing so. Some efforts to create open source photo management systems have been put into motion for quite sometime now.

Some intiatives aim at keeping educators informed and connected with the open source projects that are, for the most part developed for educational settings. Some of which include but not limited to:

SchoolForge’s association whose “mission is to unify independent organizations that advocate, use, and develop open resources for education. SchoolForge is intended to empower member organizations to make open educational resources more effective, efficient, and ubiquitous by enhancing communication, sharing resources, and increasing the transparency of development. SchoolForge members advocate the use of open source and free software, open texts and lessons, and open curricula for the advancement of education and the betterment of humankind.”

MIT Open Courseware is MIT’s approach to open content for all. ”A free publication of course materials
used at MIT.” Offering lecture notes, problem sets, labs, lecture videos and demonstrations. According to MIT you can get access to a “wide variety of subjects” through this initiative.

Many other institutions, such as Stanford University and University of California at Berkeley offer content on iTunesU, using the open source approach to offer course material to learners all over the world.

In other posts we will discuss other open source initiatives, not exactly trying to “clone” specific Web 2.0 tools, not even Web-based at all.  We will talk about open source alternatives to commercial desktop applications such as Open Office - a productivity suite similar to Microsoft Office that can be downloaded and installed free of charge onto an unlimited number of computers.

More information on how open source can projects can benefit learners and instructors can be found here and all over the internet, taht is now created and updated by common people, in a participatory and democratic way.